New Combinations

During web 1.0 we spoke a lot about New Combinations, one of the interesting concepts of Schumpeter.

In my last post before a short holiday break I will try to make another new combination.

Combine the ideas of Peter Drucker on transformation into knowledge economies with some stunning observations of Marc Eyskens, former cabinet member of Belgium and what happens?

Eyskens once remarked that the collapse of the Berlin Wall was caused by the coming of age of the knowledge & information economies in the West. In his view the present day financial and economic crises originate from the same source. Knowledge and information are available to all of us, they are not private anymore.

CU.

The day of tomorrow

What pictures will dominate tomorrow’s evening news?

Crowds in The Netherlands waiting to buy an iPad and happy people who just bought one?

Crowds of EU officials explaining the results of the EU stress tests and bankers on the move?

A very fine example

Things change. Things change fast. Things change very fast when trends combine. These trends can flock into what may turn out to be a swarm.

What happens when you combine the speedy rise of social media, the therefore growing amount of time and effort users have to invest in keeping up with all of their social media and the iPad? A new form of publishing. Maybe even a new paradigm.

The idea is brilliant. The people behind it experienced and seasoned entrepreneurs. Money from respectable sources. And there are even some Dutch people involved.  In technology and marketing!

A new combination. A possibly creative destruction. A very fine example indeed.

Watch it grow.

News

Here it is

The impact of the iPad, and the other tablets in it’s slipstream, on the media and publishing industries will be huge, as I posted several times already. My only doubts concerned the ability and talent to produce interesting, original, multimedia content. Early tryouts and pilots by magazines were in my humble opinion not that attractive. Today, however, my doubts have vaporized, at least for attractive content.
My worries about publishers and media people have grown.
The reason is obvious. It’s impact huge. It’s name: FlipBoard.

Today’s disruptions

The capacity to react and respond to disruptive technologies, and I must say the incapacity as well, is the central theme of this blog. During the last weeks however I rediscovered a basic fact. It is not technology itself. Technology has only potential if and when used and applied properly. It is not technology that is disruptive.

Effects of technology have the power to be disruptive. Startups can challenge incumbents. Market outsiders can attack existing markets. Customers can act as a swarm and suddenly decide to go elsewhere. Established players should react and respond not to technology, but to other people’s actions. Players should redefine their position and value proposition.

These days the best battlefield to watch the bizarre and explosive mix of  high tech, attacks by startups and lack of responses by incumbents is media and publishing. Today Amazon communicated that it has been selling more ebooks than paper books for already quite a while. Today I recieved an email from a wellknown author stating that publishers think it’s 1960. Today I recieved an action leaflet from Aldi, a large discounter (food and nonfood), offering an inexpensive ebook reader. And that’s just about books.

Today I learned about the first personalized newspaper for the iPad while my own quality newspaper on paper still carried at least 5 enormous mistakes in it’s main editorial comment of last saturday.

And that’s just today.

The mediaindustries show us what will happen and is happening if and when myopia takes over inside a company or industry. Wise lessons are to be learned by just watchting them.

Today.

Is it the Web?

One of the most interesting questions I encountered last week concerned the magic iPad and all tablet devices in it’s slipstream.

Do I pay to get the content into my device or do I sort of pay them for a link into the cloud?

Another way to put it: app or web?

Multi Touch Indeed!

Wait and see

The court in Amsterdam ruled The Pirate Bay to shut down.

Now.

(This was last week).

Let’s wait and see.

update 7.26 pm:

Interim injunctions proceedings were started against two ISP’s to shut down the website of TPB. The district court’s decision today did not order them to do so.

To be continued. Again and again.

Take a closer look

Unleashing the Killer App is still one of the best books ever written on the subject of riding the waves of change in this digital age. Larry Downes and Chunka Mui still are very active since their 1998 book.

For me one of the most interesting and toughtfull strategy lessons they provided was The Law of Disruption.  Brilliant in it’s simplicity. Simplex siggilum veri, or as they say these days KISS.

Please take a closer look.

Trinity

If and when new technological developments arise, it’s always a gamble to predict people will actually use them. It is not technology itself, we all know. More important is the reaction of the audience, the customers, we the people. Do we think it’s fun, a joy or just useful? We will use it. Until something else comes along and we might decide to switch.

Businesses are advised to watch what’s in the lab and might come to the market. That’s the easy part. And businesses have to look more closely and pay more attention to changes in the behaviour of their customers. That’s not an easy thing to do. And to respond properly still seems to be very hard.

So:

1. what’s happening in tech and in the labs?
2. what new tech is actually being used or even embraced by people?
3. how do we respond?

The third and most important element in this trinity it to respond. Organizational changes, reorganizations, education, new ideas, pathfinding, new business models, enhanced quality, rapid responses, pilots, experiments, cooperation, crowdsurfing, strategic alliances, whatever.

To do nothing is a response as well, but it does not offer a sustainable competitive edge. At least not for long.