(This blog post has been prepared on Google Wave, the MixedRealities wave is public and you are free to add your take to the texts you find there – whether those texts are already published here or are just drafts)
Jeff Jarvis on BuzzMachine says that the future of business is in ecosystems. It reminded me of a conversation I had with some young internet-entrepreneurs . They claimed that the generation under 30 was very collaboration minded. Sure, there is competition, but working together and seeking alliances is key. The older folks (okay I do realize this is a generalization) basically don’t trust the others. They’ll go for exclusive relationship and distribution agreements. The younger ones on the contrary say (Jarvis): “We get our distribution through customers and developers, through embedding and APIs and social connections.”
Jarvis says the new economy will be built in three layers:
- platforms (facebook, youtube, google…)
- entrepreneurial enterprises (and remember how low the cost of failure became, compared to the times of the bursting of the dotcom bubble)
- networks (in order to get better prices, to make life easier for partners etc
Watch this short video about networks:
This is the way Jarvis also thinks about the media industry. He does not see one new big media conglomerate replacing an older one. What he sees is more like an ecosystem of small ventures organizing in a network and sharing platforms. This is not to say that the traditional media conglomerates will all die.
It’s also important to realize this is not just about media, but the ideas are applicable to many other sectors (read also What would Google do by Jeff Jarvis).
One of those sectors might very well be education, which has to tackle the same problems as the media – and here we find Jarvis at Oxford college:
At Ed Techie, we find very similar subjects being discussed by Martin Weller who speaks about pedagogy in an age of abundance.
Talking about scarcity, abundance and markets,Stephen Downes refers to David Weinberger who reconsiders his original Cluetrain thoughts. Downes: “This is a case in point: not long ago he would have said (and did say) “markets are conversations” and leave us a bit in the lurch understanding what that meant. Now he says “markets are networks” – an improvement, and he expands on it in this post.” (Downes has a number of questions further on, for instance about the scalability of networks).
You find Weinberger’s take on Joho the Blog. He affirms stuff which can also be found in the original Cluetrain Manifesto or which can be derived from it, such as the demand to respect conversations. Even if markets are conversation, conversations are not markets. But there are also many difficult questions: what does it mean for on organization or a company to be authentic? If companies are also hierarchies, how can they interact with networks, which are not very hierarchy-friendly?
I would think that smaller organizations and ventures, based on individuals who are co-owners instead of employees, would have less problems with hierarchy and authenticity. Does this mean that in a post-industrial world big corporations are at a disadvantage? It is a coincidence that media innovations often came from small, nimble ventures?
Virtual Worlds
In a comment on Dusan Writer’s blog I said that the big changes in media (business in general I add now) and collaboration are not taking place inside virtual worlds such as Second Life, but outside. Events such as the launch of Twitter lists and Google Wave are of more importance than the launch of the new site of Second Life or of Second Life Enterprise (I think).
Yet, in this post we also said platforms are crucial (Jarvis said that, but I agree with him). Note how he mentions Google and Facebook, but not Second Life. I do think however that a virtual environment such as Second Life can facilitate the emergence of networks of small ventures. An organization such asThinkBalm is doing a great job helping companies to find out how they can use virtual environments.
IMHO it will be crucial for virtual environments to integrate the collaborative web tools as seamlessly as possible. With “seamless” I mean “great design”, and I’d like to refer to the model suggested by professor Don Norman as mentioned by Dusan Writer:
One of his contributions to our understanding of ‘design thinking’ is the concept of design appeal, which is also a handy crib notes reminder that making something a ‘delightful experience’ can be viewed as working on three levels:
The Visceral Level- wherein we respond mostly to appearances, and leads to that ‘object lust’ that some people get when they see a new iPhone or television set or OXO potato peeler.
The Behavioral Level – which is where usability comes into play, and which answers the question: “can I master this? Does it seem useful?”
and The Reflexive Level, which is tied up with issues of identity, self-worth and intellectual appeal. “Do I want to be associated with this product? Do I feel good about owning it? Can I tell stories about it and impress others?”
If (and only if) we could succeed in creating such an experience in a virtual environment, integrating the advances in collaborative practices on the web, virtual worlds could become a very useful part of the post-industrial economy.