6. The world needs better governments.

Some governments in Central America and Africa are just holding on and many are dysfunctional.  But governability is becoming an issue for G20 countries as well.  One leader said the US is on the brink of being “ungovernable.”  One Chinese executive responded thusly when asked to defend his country’s lack of democracy:  “So we should adopt the American system where lobbyists run everything and nothing happens?”

Democracy was still seen as an unstoppable force but in many regions of the world it is becoming stalled, and in some cases losing ground.  Basic democratic institutions are at risk and in danger of failing part due to the economic crisis in poor countries.  The best predictor of democratic survival is per capita income.  In some countries portions of the government have been captured by interest groups. Other non-democratic countries are proving competitively stable and economically healthy.  And the current economic crisis shows that national governments and domestic regulation are inadequate to deal with the challenges of the global economy.   There is also danger of protectionism and isolationism.

7. It turns out the internet DOES change everything

The much-discredited phrase from the dotcom period is not just geek speak.  The Internet and Social Networks were central to many of the discussions here.  The digital age seems to be coming of age.  I participated with CEOs of most of the important social networks in a session called The Power of Social Networks. It got a lot of buzz at Davos.  A few minutes into it the session we solicited questions from Facebook.  6,000 questions appeared in first 2 minutes.

The growing consensus is that new business models are emerging in every industry and throughout society.  I’ve argued that social networking is becoming social production and that a new mode of production is emerging – changing not only how we make software or encyclopedias but physical goods like motorcycles.

Most leaders love that a web company – Google –  is taking on China. The circumstantial evidence that the China-based hacking of Google was conducted by authorities looking for information about activists was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Talking to Google execs I’m convinced they not going to back down.

8. Girls, women and gender. A sea change is underway.

There was lots of buzz about women’s emerging purchasing power, known as the Power of the Purse.  The expected worldwide increase of women’s income by 2013 is $5.1 trillion, which is greater than China’s expected growth of $3 trillion for the same period.

Deep interest in the so-called Girl Effect, i.e., investing in girls offers the biggest ROI in the developing world.  In African countries female illiteracy is almost a third higher than that of men.  But every year of schooling increases a girl’s future earnings by 20 percent.  And by earning more and influencing how dollars are spent, women would acquire a stronger voice in all aspects of their lives.

Although women are becoming stronger financially, they are still very weak politically.  Countries should be more aggressive in finding female candidates for public office, and look outside the regular channels. But increased financial and political power brings responsibility. Woman could be key in refocusing our political and economic efforts away from consumerism.

9.  We need new measures of progress

There is growing agreement that GDPs and GNPs are flawed tools for measuring the health of country, and we should instead emphasize the idea of Gross National Well-Being or something similar.  Just as some companies have moved to “triple-bottom line” reporting for their impact on society, many economists argue that GDPs and GNPs measure activities that are detrimental to society and ignore activities that are beneficial.

A pandemic will increase drug sales and visits to doctors, thereby driving up GNP.  Volunteer work or work in the home is not recognized as contributing to GNP.

There is no lack of research and creativity on this issue, as some governments and academics have developed a wide array of yardsticks to more accurately capture how well and healthily a country is growing.  The key now is to have these new tools recognized as legitimate and encourage their widespread adoption.

10. A new big idea.  The Global Commons.

Like a park in a village we need new global parks in the global village. Some of the global commons areas are well-recognized, such as our atmosphere, oceans and space, but there are less obvious areas that exist, or should be created, such as know-how concerning sustainability

Conventional wisdom says you should control and protect proprietary resources and innovations – especially intellectual property – through patents, copyright and trademarks. If someone infringes your IP, summon the lawyers out to do battle.  That’s often the wrong approach.  Contributing to “the commons” is not altruism; it’s the best way to build vibrant business ecosystems that harness a shared foundation of technology and knowledge to accelerate growth and innovation.

A good private sector example is when more than a dozen pharmaceutical firms abandoned their proprietary R&D projects to support open collaborations such as the SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms) Consortium and the Alliance for Cellular Signaling.  Both projects aggregate genetic information culled from biomedical research in publicly accessible databases. They also use their shared infrastructures to harness resources and insights from the for-profit and not-for-profit research worlds. These efforts are speeding the industry toward fundamental breakthroughs in molecular biology – breakthroughs that promise an era of personalized medicine and treatments for intractable disorders. Nobody gives up their potential patent rights over new end products, and by sharing some basic intellectual property the companies bring products to market more quickly.

One overarching theme at the conference is the confidence that young people have such great potential. Obviously we have a lot of work ahead of us if we don’t want to pass on a deeply damaged planet to our children.  At the final session at Davos, we heard from six inspiring young people on stage on their hopes and ambitions.  There were more than a few tears in the audience.

With the conspicuous exception of global warming, Harper acknowledged that many challenges face the world, but told delegates that the two most appropriate arenas for discussion and decision making are the G8 and the G20.  He described the latter as “the world’s premier forum for economic cooperation.” And each country should be guided by “enlightened self-interest” and a better “attitude.”

But the mood in Davos is that the planet is facing urgent, complicated, 21^st century problems, and we need to craft 21^st century systems to develop the answers. We should involve all of our planet’s best talent in the solution-seeking process, including the private sector, civil society and individual citizens.

Doubtless Harper placed emphasis on the G8 and G20 because this year’s meetings will occur in Canada and he is the Chair. But that doesn’t mean he should be indifferent to the enormous contributions that could be made by others, or closed to the exciting new approaches to solving global problems.

Following last year’s World Economic Forum at Davos, many delegates went on to participate in the Forum’s Global Redesign Initiative in meetings around the world. The Initiative brought together diverse stakeholders to develop fresh solutions to the many challenges facing our small and fragile planet.  Much of this year’s Forum was devoted to discussing the proposals developed by the Initiative.

The Initiative itself was driven by the belief of Forum members that our international collaborative processes are tired and too constrained to meet current needs.  In Davos, the failed Copenhagen global-warming conference was frequently cited by delegates as a metaphor for the inadequacy of existing processes. To be sure, no one is suggesting that nation states do not need to sit down and hammer out accords. But many Davos delegates believe that such meetings, while necessary, are by themselves insufficient to grapple with the thorny issues confronting us.

Davos delegates feel all issues on the global agenda should be addressed in a systemic, integrated and strategic way, and are frustrated many government leaders aren’t embracing this view.

Had Harper come a day earlier, he would have heard French President Nicolas Sarkozy deliver a withering critique of how the planet’s issues are managed today. “From the moment we accepted the idea that the market was always right and that no other opposing factors need be taken into account, globalization skidded out of control,” Sarkozy said. Many systems in the world, including capitalism, were in serious need of reform.  “Each of us must hold the conviction that the world of tomorrow cannot be the same as the world of yesterday.”  A text of Sarkozy’s remarks can be seen here.

While Harper promotes the notion of enlightened self-interest, that got us nowhere in Copenhagen.  . And the irony of Harper’s remarks is that many here think one country with needing a better “attitude” on climate change is Canada. And it is an uphill battle for Canada to turn around its reputation as “the dirty old man of the climate world.”

In fact Harper further damaged Canada’s reputation on this issue, and undermined his approach to global cooperation in a panel discussion after his speech. When questioned about Canada’s position he said that countries needed to take into account the economic costs of being green.  To be sure Canada, as an energy producer has more complex issues than European countries. But some in the audience were disturbed by the remark.

Liberal MP Scott Brison said to me that Prime Minister Harper was “the only leader at Davos who didn’t understand the opportunities for economic growth and jobs in becoming a green nation. Environmental laggards will become economic laggards in the emerging global carbon-constrained green economy.”

Yes the G8 and G20 meetings will be important and they may even make some progress on climate change.  But today there are collaborations involving millions of people, along with governments, private companies and civil society organizations that are actually doing something about climate change. Government leaders need to listen to fresh thinking about how to harness this power, rather than relying on old approaches that have the world stalled.

The venue was a conscripted hairdressing salon that was pressed into service by the Forum as a meeting space.  We were like sardines. But the energy in the tiny room was high.

To recap: The Xchange is a Web-based marketplace where companies can collaborate and share intellectual property which can lead to new sustainability business models and innovation.  Ten organizations have already signed on. The Xchange is the first step in a journey towards more sustainable innovation, and the more companies that get on board, the faster we’ll all make progress.  More info can be found here. http://greenxchange.force.com/

In Wikinomics my co-author Anthony Williams and I argued that we’re living in a world where new approaches to collaboration enable new business models that enable companies to create better value for consumers.  We said companies need a portfolio of intellectual property – some that they own and protect, some that they licence and some that they share.  The Green Exchange is all about achieving that.

Nike began the announcement with a cool video that made it clear that sustainability is not an obligation, it’s an opportunity.  Companies can choose to be ahead of the curve or behind the times.  The goal is to create an innovation community.  No one is “giving away” their intellectual property; the exchange includes a licensing protocol.

“Nike is today committing to placing more than 400 of our patents on GX for research, demonstrating our belief that the best way to stimulate sustainable innovation is through open innovation,” said Mark Parker, Nike president and CEO. “Our hope is this will unleash new innovation to help solve current obstacles to sustainability issues.”

Example: Possible cross-industry benefits of making available Nike’s Environmentally Preferred Rubber. Used in Nike footwear the rubber contains 96 percent fewer toxins than the original formulation. By licensing the technology on GX it could be used in other company’s footwear, or it could hypothetically be used by Mountain Equipment Co-op for bicycle inner tubes. In this way Mountain Equipment Co-op could bring a greener product to market more quickly and cheaply than it could on its own.

Parker explained that initially the company’s lawyers opposed the Xchange.  They felt intellectual property was always meant to be kept under wraps and guarded.  But they’ve all come around to see the value of the Xchange, not only to the environment, but also bring competitive advantage to the company.  When Nike’s patents are put into the commons, any improvements made to the patents will be available to Nike.

Parker said universities are a great source of intellectual property. What is needed – and what the Xchange provides – is a standard protocol whereby IP can bust out from the university and be helpful more broadly to business and society.

John Wilbanks, VP for Science at Creative Commons, said “There is so much duplication of effort and wasted resources when it comes to sustainability. We need to make it easier for individuals, companies, academia, and researchers to collaborate and share best practices.”

This idea of a patent commons came up at another session.  Currently the planet has many commons like the ocean, air and space.  Much of the Web is in the commons. It’s time we added an additional area:  know-how related to sustainability.

A couple of years ago the Forum’s founder, Klaus Schwab, launched, to say the least, a rather bold undertaking to use the Internet to turn Davos into a 365-day experience.  Not unthinkable I say.  After all hundreds of millions of people collaborate on social networks, wikis, blogs and brainstorms to do everything from making friends to creating encyclopedias, writing disruptive software projects and helping a devastated Caribbean island recover from a horrific earthquake.  So why couldn’t such tools be used to fix what’s wrong with the world on a year round basis?

Call it a Digital Davos.

But WELCOM (stands for World Electronic Community) got off to a slow start.

There were numerous technical challenges in getting the right companies assembled to  do the work: there was no integration between WELCOM and the system of information kiosks at that Davos attendees use to sign up for sessions and communicate with each other;  the project was viewed by some as elitist – restricted to the few thousand world leaders that might attend Davos; and there were enormous challenges getting CEOs, politicians and leaders of the civil society to actually use the platform and change their behavior to solve problems on networks.

But it looks like this year these issues have been addressed and WELCOM might actually be ready for prime time.

To begin, the technology is now first rate.  After a false start, WELCOM now has a group of partners, companies like Accenture (ACN), Adobe Systems (ADBE), BT Group (BT) and TIBCO that are putting some real muscle into the work, primarily on a pro bono basis.  The platform has good basic functionality and The Forum has a good team figuring out how the system should evolve and improve.  It’s not just another Facebook. Users can videoconference, exchange documents and video and audio files, store material online, co-edit documents, brainstorm and more.

Second, Accenture has fully integrated WELCOM and the onsite Kiosks, so you can sign up for sessions from laptop or Blackberry, reducing the Kiosk lineups.  There is a wealth of material online about the topic being discussed and the delegates in attendance.

Third, one charge frequently made against the Forum is that it is elitist, but the Forum has made great strides in making its work and proceeding open to the public. Linked to WELCOM is a Social Media Outreach designed to engage the broader world.  For example, one of the sessions I’m helping to lead deals with social networks.

But check out the description and the twist:

The World Economic Forum will explore the growing influence of social networks in a workshop at the start of the Annual Meeting 2010 in Davos. The discussion is moderated by Loïc Le Meur, Founder of Seesmic and will include, among others Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning, George Colony, CEO, Forrester Research, Don Tapscott, NGenera, Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn, Owen Van Natta CEO, MySpace.com and Evan Williams, CEO, Twitter.

Given the topic of the workshop it was natural to open it to input from the different social networks. We want to hear from you:

1.   “How are social networks changing society?” 2.   “What are the most important implications and risks for society?” 3.   “What should individuals and institutions do to leverage the power of social networks and improve society?”

 You can join the discussion on a number of social networks and platforms.

1) Leave a comment on the Forum blog

2) Become a Fan of the Forum on Facebook

3) Join the Forum group on LinkedIn

4) Befriend the Forum on MySpace

5) Join the Forum network on Ning

6) Reply to @Davos on Twitter

7) Record and upload a video on YouTube

With initiatives like this, the 2010 meeting promises to be the most broadly inclusive ever.

Finally, The Forum has a sophisticated user engagement plan. Rather than trying to convince Barack Obama to be on WELCOM chatting up a storm with Nicolas Sarkozy and Ban Ki-moon they are beginning with the participants most likely to use networks to solve problems.  First up are wonks like me – members of the  Global Agenda Council’s that I wrote about in my last post.  This includes constituencies such as academics, scientists, journalists and other who love to discuss and communicate ideas.

They also appear to be focusing on young people who are more likely to turn to networks to collaborate.  In 2005 the Forum has established the community of Young Global Leaders, consisting of hundreds of leaders under the age of 40 from around the world and myriad occupations and sectors.   These young adults are recognized for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.  With many of them being part of the Net Generation, they understandably will fully exploit the tremendous potential a system such as WELCOM has to offer.

The Kiosk integration is also a nifty way of drawing attendees into WELCOM.  Everyone at Davos needs the Kiosks to sign up for activities and communicate.  Now they need WELCOM.

I’ve been using WELCOM for the past year and it’s a solid step forward.  But the Forum is still in the early days of curating the behavioral changes needed for the collaboration at Davos to be extended all year long.

But enough of this, I’ve got to get signing up for some sessions.

Alice.com is a relatively new start-up that might represent a step in that direction. Originally profiled in June by TechCrunch, the company is hoping to do to “home essentials” shopping what the likes of Amazon (et al) have done to books, clothing, shoes and electronics. The basic value proposition is buying through the site instead of trudging to the store. And they try to add value by “tracking” what you are running low on and sending reminders, as well as finding coupons and deals. Here’s a quote from the CEO summarizing what they’re trying to do:

“We have been extremely pleased with the reception that the Alice.com platform has received in the marketplace from both consumers and manufacturers alike. Direct to consumer sales by manufacturers is a growing trend online, and the Alice.com platform is helping the CPG industry open up a direct channel to its mainstream consumer. It’s a win-win that brings great value to the end consumer, and critical consumer relationships and insights to the manufacturer.” - Brian Wiegand, CEO.

The company has now secured a second round of financing, which they hope to use to bring companies like P&G on board. The big question I have is whether, if they succeed, this development will help consumer brands or hurt them.

The reason is simple. While such intermediaries might help the manufacturers fight back against private label goods (and the retailers behind them) in the short-term, in the long-term such sites might actually increase commoditization pressures. If customers become hooked on coupons and deals, margins could easily be challenged – and with the site offering to crawl the web and automatically apply discounts, this could turn into a real issue. They also take a page out of Progressive Insurance’s book, and provide real-time price comparisons across a variety of sites – which should also drive down prices. And if they use ranking and ratings from other customers (akin to what Amazon does), it may  be even more difficult to differentiate yourself among (say) the 86 different types of bathroom paper on offer.

But on the other side, there is the potential to capture a lot more margin here – if Alice.com’s business model works. Right now, Alice.com takes no retail margin whatsoever – which is how they can claim to be a “direct channel”. Instead, they plan to support their entire business through advertising – ads on the site, and a variety of ways to provide samples and coupons. If it works I could see how that would be a boon for retailers- but trying to support an entire logistics infrastructure (warehousing, all the e-commerce, and free shipping) based on ad revenue alone might not add up.

But if it works, it could truly be a “game changer” – representing a new type of intermediary in retail, stripping out an enormous and costly infrastructure while supporting itself through advertising and some sort of data ownership (while allowing a lot more data to flow directly to the manufacturer). This will be particularly true if we ever get to the magical place where the “refrigerator (etc.) talks to your PC” – allowing for real monitoring of when certain products get low.

So it will be an interesting one to watch – particularly from the perspective of the CPGs themselves. One wonders if one of the ways to fight back against pricing and commoditization pressures here is having one company – say P&G – provide certain customers with all their household needs, providing some form of additional value that goes beyond simply saving money.

As reported on ArsTechnica.com, the computer gaming industry is not pleased with the response that AT&T filed with the FCC.  It suggested that online games should be relegated to the category of being nice but not essential. “For Americans who today have no terrestrial broadband service at all,” AT&T wrote the Commission, “the pressing concern is not the ability to engage in real-time, two-way gaming, but obtaining meaningful access to the Internet’s resources and to reliable email communications and other basic tools that most of the country has come to expect as a given.”

This did not sit well with the Entertainment Software Association.  Online video games “are no less important to the future of the Internet than email and web browsing were to the past and are today,” a senior ESA representative told the Commission on Wednesday.

They’re used for employee training and in schools, he noted. “Online video games are a meaningful part of our participative culture. They remove geographic barriers, connecting people from across the country and around the world. They teach cooperation, cultivate leadership skills, and empower users to express their creativity.”

Google’s submission took the most sensible approach. “Ultimately what interests us about broadband is not what it is, but what it enables,” the search engine giant wrote to the Commission. Broadband should be defined at speeds “that enable full utilization of broadband services and applications.” The connections should be “sufficiently robust” enough to let users “receive, generate and interact with voice, data, graphics and video, which will enable users to receive the maximum value of broadband.”

Google’s dream definition of broadband? “A high-quality, ‘always on,’ packet switched, technology-neutral, high speed communications transmission platform,” the company suggests. “This platform further should allow users to harness the Internet, access and upload content, and otherwise engage in high-speed two-way connectivity and interactivity.”

While the global battlefield showcased the fight between ideas like Communism, Fascism, and Western Liberalism, other ideas are pit against one another on smaller scales all the time. Take for instance the showdown between alternating current and direct current (AC and DC). Both are ideas about how to transfer electricity. DC ultimately lost because it wouldn’t work on a large scale; it wasn’t viable in the long term. Had Edison’s pro-DC publicity campaign been successful and DC became the dominant electricity model, it’s likely that we would have quickly hit the upper limit of usefulness and been abandoned in favor of AC anyway (or another, better technology).

This happens everywhere: Phrenology lost to Psychology; more trivially the curtsey lost to the handshake. Betamax was superior to VHS but lost the format war of the 70s. Either format would have been beaten handily by DVD but only VHS lived to see its own demise. Inconsistent (or suboptimal) approaches lose out over and over again.

For now Western Liberalism married with Capitalism seems to be the mode of choice for maximizing individual freedom in the broader context of society. This means having a democratic society with—in varying degrees—free markets. This has been supplemented by finance, a global network that connects all countries and peoples of the world and communicates information about supply and demand via indicators (market prices) that drive human behaviors.

The hierarchy of things should be that governments set the rules for economic behavior, and within those confines companies and individuals act in their own self interest. Unfortunately in practice money is seductive and politicians are (often) bribed. Further still, government is inherently local while finance is global. In essence, by its nature finance struggles to be the highest principle at play—the one at the heart society. After all, there’s more money to be made when everything—government included—is subsumed into the profit-seeking construct. This isn’t to say that finance is bad, just single-minded.

The recent financial meltdown seems to hint that Capitalism may have at its core some inconsistencies that undermine its long term viability. These objections aren’t new; take for example shopping at Wal-Mart: short term benefit (in the form of low prices) is contrasted with the long term cost of driving down wages and moving business overseas. Similar arguments can be made socially and environmentally.

In the past few years we have seen the rise of another global network that connects all peoples in all countries and efficiently communicates information about supply and demand: the Internet. While the relationship between finance and technology has usually been mutually beneficial, with the advent of the Internet it seems possible for technology to offer an alternative to finance as the central pillar for global society—one for which finance is a tool rather than a master.

Already large companies are trying to bend the internet into a new corporate-controlled distribution channel for their products and services, but could this go the other way? Could the internet replace finance as the central pillar that networks the world together? Are the two necessarily in competition? What would the world look like if this shift ever took place? Do we want it to?

I’m curious to know.

Applications came in from a diverse range of parties including state, local, and tribal governments; nonprofits; industry; anchor institutions, such as libraries, universities, community colleges, and hospitals; public safety organizations; and other entities in rural, suburban, and urban areas. The wide array of applicants illustrates how greater bandwidth benefits virtually every aspect of society.

The urgency of bulking up the nation’s Internet infrastructure was underscored by a report released last week by the Communications Workers of America (CWA). It revealed that the United States ranks 28th in the world in average Internet connection speed and is not making significant progress in building a faster network.

The report said the average download speed in South Korea is 20.4 megabits per second (mbps) — four times faster than the US average of 5.1 mbps.

Continued job growth, innovation and rural development require high-speed, universal networks. The CWA said that data shows that for every $5 billion invested in broadband infrastructure to create these networks, 97,500 new jobs in the telecommunications, computer and IT sectors will be created.

“Every American should have affordable access to high-speed Internet, no matter where they live. This is essential to economic growth and will help maintain our global competitiveness,” said Larry Cohen, president, CWA. “Unfortunately, fragmented government programs and uneven private sector responses to build out Internet access have left a digital divide across the country.”

The country has made little progress in speeding up the Internet during the past year. Tests conducted by speedmatters.org found the average US download speed had improved by only nine-tenths of a megabit per second between 2008 and 2009 — from 4.2 mbps to 5.1 mbps.

Directed by Ivo Gormley, the film explores how the web is changing the many ways in which we can organize ourselves. From a democratic football club where the fans pick the team to a lending service where everyone can be a bank manager, Us Now brings together the leading thinkers in the field of participation and web culture to describe how mass collaboration could change society. As the co-author of Wikinomics:  How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, I was asked by Ivo Gormley to participate.

The UK documentary had its North American premiere 2½ months ago in Toronto.  One of many attending the premiere was Ruby Ku, a self-described 20-something SciBus student at the University of Waterloo.  Ruby was good enough to track down the URLs for many groups featured in the film:

1. School of Everything – a website that helps people who want to learn meet up with people who want to teach.
2. Zopa – a market place where people lend and borrow money to and from each other, sidestepping the banks.
3. Couchsurfing – a worldwide network making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit; participate in a better world, one couch at a time.
4. The People Speak – a campaign to engage young people on the global issues that will shape their future – an initiative from the United Nations Foundation.
5. Slice The Pie – a music financing company that aggregates thousands of people’s opinions about upcoming bands and allows fans to invest in producing albums.
6. MyFootballClub – join members from over 80 countries who own Ebbsfleet United and vote on all key decisions from team selection to financial budgets.
7. Mumsnet – a social enterprise + community of parents sharing their know-hows on the net and meeting up in real-life.
8. Open Everything – global conversation about the art, science, and the spirit of “open.”

It would be great to see the documentary go viral.  If you haven’t seen the film, please give it a try.  And if you like it (which you will) tell as many friends as you can.

Open standards and open source software already enjoy widespread support in Europe, particularly among governments who fear the influence of Microsoft and other proprietary software vendors. So this year’s conference will examine some of the issues that will define the Internet of the future. How will the next 5-10 years of technology innovation transform the Internet, for example, and are today’s regulations sufficient to ensure that the Internet remains open?

My role is to help make a broader case for openness in business and government, with my main point being that greater openness — socially, technologically, politically, and strategically — underpins any hope we have of solving some of the massive challenges that confront humanity. Here’s the description I’ve just finished drafting:

Open standards are fueling a period of unprecedented innovation on the Internet that is reshaping every institution in modern society. In business, smart firms realize that openness can accelerate innovation and unleash the knowledge, ingenuity and skills of a diverse global talent pool. In government, greater openness is generating radically more productive, equitable and transparent services and unlocking new possibilities to crowdsource solutions to global challenges. The Open Internet not only underpins these important transformations, it helps reveal a more general competitive and political imperative for the 21st century. Without greater openness in all institutions, the world will be ill-equipped to confront the complex challenges that face humanity.

I hope to see you at the event if you’re in or near Brussels on on April 24th.

An interesting experiment is taking place right now that will put some of our perspectives and predictions on this topic to the test.  Since printing its last edition on February 27th, 2009, a number of staffers from Denver’s award-winning Rocky Mountain News (RMN) have collaborated with three local entrepreneurs to form InDenverTimes (IDT) – “a vision based on a 150-year tradition.”

IDT has collected 30 former RMN reporters, editors, designers and other journalists,  and plans to go live  with its online edition that will “invite readers [subscribers] inside the newsroom as never before” on May 4th  if at least 50,000 pledges of $4.99 a month or more can be secured by April 23rd.  The collective has created a YouTube video that details their appeal.

As Patrick Harnett reported in his earlier post, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is quoted as saying in his 2008 Boyer Lecture Series, “My summary of the way some of the established media has responded to the internet is this: it’s not newspapers that might become obsolete. It’s some of the editors, reporters, and proprietors who are forgetting a newspaper’s most precious asset: the bond with its readers.”

Interestingly, the above-mentioned YouTube video is clearly focused on the journalists/staff themselves and the perspective that they brought to their stories, heavily leveraging the writer/reader bond. The video finishes with sports journalist Sam Adams delivering the line:

You’ve seen our faces, you’ve heard our voices, we’re anxious to provide you with insightful commentary, in-depth reporting and invaluable experience.  We’re InDenver, are you?

There seems to be quite a bit of buzz around the IDT, and based on comments in numerous locations, support seems forthcoming.  The question remains, though, will intention carry through to action at a cost of $4.99 a month? Has the connection to familiar names and voices formed a strong enough bond to make the InDenverTimes a reality?  Could this be a model for the ‘paper’ of the future?

When President Obama announced last month that he’ll ask ordinary Americans to help him change America, it didn’t take long for the influencers inside the Washington beltway to ring the alarm: What happens if ordinary Americans actually come up with some new ideas to run government? Will things get out of control? Will they become bullies who will force Obama and Congressional lawmakers to bend to their will?

To me, they sound a lot like the traditional marketers who are worried that they’re losing control over their brand. Both marketers and lawmakers are struggling to adjust to a digital world where consumers and voters now have powerful tools to talk back, and even influence the brand or the policy. So let me give the Washington lawmakers the same message I have delivered to the marketers: Let go. You can’t control everything. The genie has slipped out of the bottle and she’s not coming back. And I think this is a really good thing…

Read the full post here and then join the discussion.

To see what a leading anxiety disorders specialist thought about our use of online health sites I went to Dr. Randi McCabe, Psychologist-In-Chief at Hamilton, Ontario’s St. Jospeh’s Health Care. Part of her anxiety disorders research has examined the extent to which health-realted sites provoke anxiety. She was able to put the dangers and benefits of online health info searching into perspective for me.

“For peope who can critically evaluate the information that’s online, it’s great. For people who continuosly doubt their health, people with health anxiety in specific, these sites often make matters worse. On (a site like Patients Like Me [mentioned here and here]), a health anxiety patient might hear about a side effect of their medication. That will provoke anxiety and from there the patient might get to such a high level of anxiety that he or she will stop taking medication or stop going to counselling. In that case, the info online can have indirect, negative health consequences.”

What I took away from my conversation with Dr. McCabe is that for people with moderate-to-severe health anxiety disorders, online health info can provoke extreme anxiety. But for anyone who is not “health anxious” already, the Internet is generally a helpful health resource.

So let’s stop prepetuating this rumour of a cyberchondria epidemic, continue to be responsible consumers of information, and recognize legitimate online health communities as genuine sources of help and support.

At first I enjoyed the irony of the situation, but within a few days, I had grown quite tired of my tiny iPhone screen for Web access and I found myself needing to visit friends/family and Internet cafes, sometimes on more than once daily basis, to get my full Net fix. (The day before losing access, I had been at a client engagement, and had been asked how I would feel as a Net Gener without Internet access.  I proudly responded to the effect of I’m sure I’d be just fine.  Little did I know…)

It was a combination of factors that compounded to make my situation more frustrating, including my being on vacation (so no office Internet), a lack of cable television (I don’t normally subscribe to TV – Net Gener, remember), and decreased access to offline news sources such as my local paper from the corner box, at which I found this sign:

(Sign reads: To Our Valued Customers:  This vending machine will be removed from this location in the very near future.  The closest location you can purchase a Toronto Star is:________)

From some of our previous Net Gen research, I knew that depriving a Net Gener of their technology could present a very difficult situation, as the collage below from one of our in-home studies shows, but I had to this point managed to somehow “separate” myself from those Net Geners.

To think, feelings of despair and desolation, just from being removed from your technology…How strange, I thought. Little did I know…my separation from immediate Internet access set me up for quite a range of emotions, from an occasional sense of relief and freedom that came from being “disconnected”, to the more frequent feelings of anxiety that were caused by not knowing what was going on, in real-time.  What world events were taking place that I should be up to speed on?  What if someone was trying to get a hold of me?   How would I watch my ailing Raptors go on a multiple game losing streak?

I knew the Internet played an important role in my life, but I didn’t realize how important it was to my daily routine, even when not working, until it was no longer readily available.  I’m now back at work, and have had my home Internet access restored, but what a couple of weeks it has been.

I’m curious to hear reactions our readers might have from their own disconnected experiences.  Have you been disconnected, or intentionally disconnected for an extended period of time?  How did you feel?  Has anyone vacationed at a “phone and Blackberry-free zone” to escape the “always-on”?

The article in the WSJ argues that Google’s not-so-new practice of using edge-servers—servers that are closer to dense user populations—as part of their content delivery network is an overture against their pro-net neutrality stance. According to Wired, these edge-servers are co-located at ISPs near their users (which would logically mean major urban centres), which improves the performance of Google’s sites (like YouTube). The WSJ contends that this faster access these edge-servers provide is a breach of net neutrality, as its only for Google content.

Richard Whitt fired back at the WSJ article saying that it missed the point: Google is doing a service by speeding its content to its users, and that they’re not blocking any other content providers from doing the same. The WSJ article also argues that these practices essentially give Google “they’re own fast track to the web”. Wired fired back with a more appropriate analogy, likening Google’s servers to free car washes near their users. I don’t like that one so much, because it implies that it’s for everyone. Really, the speed-up is for Google content. So how does this analogy sound: “It’s like a Audi Roadside Assistance. You’ve got to drive an Audi to get it, but it’s not preventing any Toyota drivers from access to their own Roadside Service.” How does that fit?

I have to agree with both Wired and Mr. Whitt on the unnecessarily alarmist tone the WSJ article took while accusing Google. The WSJ also seemed to spread the idea that equality on the Internet was losing some of its most fervent supporters in Larry Lessig, Amazon, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Again, Wired has done a nice job of exposing those statements as either speculation or as untrue.

I’m just a little floored at how off-base the WSJ article seems, and it looks more like sound and fury than substantiated narrative. Any readers have any thoughts when they read the WSJ article? Or is net neutrality not as cut-and-dried as Google makes it out to be?

That’s why I was so happy to come across this story about Ukoonto when I read the Globe & Mail over lunch. The article is about a young entrepreneur (and soon to be former sound engineer) named Hans Eich, who builds eco-friendly wooden building block toys from his St. Catherine’s based workshop. While I can’t say that I’ve tested the products myself yet, they look great – and from a wikinomics perspective what’s most interesting is how Hans has developed and promoted his company.

As the article notes, outside of an occasional trade show, Hans relies solely on Web 2.0 tools to spread the word about his products. When he started up, he had practically no money, and no big business plan – just an idea to create a toy company. He launched it under the domain of “my toy needs a name”, created a framework online, and asked people for ideas and feedback. From there, to quote Hans:

It was all about interacting with people and trying to set up meaningful relationships. The business evolved out of that.

If you go through the article, you can read about all the interesting lessons he’s learned – from use of things like YouTube and Twitter, to why it’s so much harder to create “fans” on Facebook than create groups, to backlash he received when he tried to push his products to hard in communities he joined, rather than really engaging with the people. To quote Hans again:

You have to listen first before they start listening to you. Traditional media is about telling, but Web 2.0 is all about conversations. It’s very much about letting go of control and engaging with people.

I’ll let you learn the rest from the Globe article, but I found it just an extraordinarly refreshing read – particularly when the three articles on the previous page were “EU to get call for stimulus package”, “Easy credit, public spending fuelled boom”, and “Lost auto jobs pegged at 15,000.” Amidst all the doom and gloom, it’s important to remember that there is an extraordinary opportunity out there for entrepeneurs that can create a good product they are passionate about, and learn to leverage social media and the web 2.0 in a compelling way. As Hans noted, given that most of the tools he’s leveraging are free, his out-of-pocket costs have basically been limited to website design costs. Think about how different it would have been if Hans tried to launch his company twenty years ago…

The CEA study shows the average teen expects to spend around $312 on consumer electronic (CE) devices in the next six months, though doubtless the actual purchases may fall short of this due to the growing economic meltdown. The CEA study was in the field during the summer of 2008.

A quarter of teens expected to purchase a new cell phone within the next six months, making it teens’ most popular consumer electronic product. When asked to choose only one technology to use for an entire day, teens chose cell phones more than any other product. Not just used for talking, seventy percent of teens use their cell phones for texting. Teens also use their phones to access mobile entertainment, shoot videos, listen to music and watch videos. Over one-third of a teens’ cell phone activities are spent accessing and creating content. Based on teen’s current cell phone usage and interest in more advanced features, growth can be expected in teen ownership of smartphones.

A separate study released last month by Piper Jaffray shows just how much Apple has locked up the teen market. In digital music, 84 percent of students who own an MP3 player indicated that they own an iPod – up from 82 percent last fall. iTunes share also rose to 93 percent from 79 percent last fall. In addition, 8 percent of students indicate they own an Apple iPhone (up from 3 percent in fall 2007), while 22 percent of students expect to buy an iPhone in the next 6 months (up from 9 percent in the prior survey).

When asked by CEA researchers how they spend their day, nearly half of teen’s activities were driven by technology. Four of their five top activities were technology driven, with listening to music as the most popular activity among teens. Purchasing (58 percent), borrowing (56 percent) or receiving a CD (52 percent) as a gift are still the primary sources teens get music, with online stores (51 percent) being a secondary source. Purchasing music through online stores has increase 10 percent since 2006 and teens are accessing music through online sources like YouTube (47 percent). As teens increase their online time, there is expected growth in online consumption of music.

If you work through all the examples of “wikinomics in action” in the book and on this blog, some of them are about harnessing the wisdom of crowds, and others are about attracting uniquely qualified minds. As one would expect, the strategies required for success on one side are very different from the strategies required for success on the other.

Enter, Reference Extract. Currently in development, the project is designed to shake up internet searching by creating a “credibility engine.” The difference between a credibility engine and your granddaddy’s search engine? Unlike Google which is based on, among other things, total number of links to a given page (a more detailed explanation can be found here), Reference Extract will favour pages recommended from a pool of volunteer librarians from 1400 libraries worldwide. Their argument is that a lot of the search results found on mainstream search engines are poor because the results aren’t subjected to any sort of scrutiny. By using a team of experienced and qualified experts, the search results, it’s hoped, will be more accurate and more useful.

It will be interesting to see the long term implications of this project. Will the trusted-expert concept be enough to steer people away from Google (or Yahoo and MSN for that matter)? Or is “googling it” so ingrained in our internet experience that there isn’t room for one more search engine? Perhaps we’ll see Reference Extract become a specialty search engine that caters to clientele who require an added degree of certainty in their searching – journalists, I’m looking in your direction.

The idea of searching smarter is destined to become increasingly important as the amount of information out there continues to expand at breakneck speed. We’re already surrounded by more data than we know what to do with which raises the question: in future, will it make more sense to trust experts to sort out what information is truly relevant? Or are we more than happy to continue to trust Google to be our search engine steady date?

It’s cute, but moreover, it shows that YouTube (and Google) understands that a number of video comments would have been better-off not posted (a point similar to my previous post, about the extent to which online systems should be designed to protect us from ourselves). Not just that, it shows a lot of personality, something that seems like something of an odd comment when talking about a website or large company. These personalities serve to “de-technologify” technology, making it easier to simply interact with it.

Some examples; things that made me smirk (or frown) as I tried out new software and websites:

• Google’s Chrome Browser — when something goes wrong in Chrome, you’re not presented with some snippet of code in HEX along with an error code. Instead, you get “Aw snap, something went wrong.” It catches you off guard the first time, and it’s not drab or boring like a typical application error.
• 404 pages — Things will go wrong and people will try to access pages that don’t exist, there are lots of ways that a webmaster can choose to let a visitor know that something isn’t right.
• Windows Vista’s Cancel or Continue — a good example of a complete lack of personality, especially on a prompt that shows up far more than is necessary, it ends up simply becoming a nuisance, making the software aggravating rather than useful.
• OSX’s bootup login prompt — when a mac boots up and requests a password, if you enter the wrong password, the window shakes. It’s simple and communicates that you typoed, all without the need for a popup asking you to try again.
• Winamp — I don’t think that many people use Winamp anymore, which is too bad, because it’s always been great software. Way back when I first loaded up Winamp, the software autoplays a clip “Winamp, it really whips the llama’s…” — backside. Nothing especially functional, but it still serves to set the software apart, and stayed in my memory to this day.

As we do more and more things with and through software, that software itself becomes the face of the company that designed it. For personable companies and applications, having a certain degree of transitivity between the personalities of the applications, and the personalities of the companies, becomes a very good thing.

Looping this back to the XKCD-YouTube example, I appreciate that Google/YouTube is able to recognize that there’s a lot of rubbish-comments on their site, and that they’re able to make light of the situation in a very public-facing way. This doens’t mean that my YouTube usage is going to go up (the only way that could happen is if more hours were added to the day), but it does serve to make the company a little more human, and a little more likeable — not a bad accomplishment if I’m trying to decide where I want to go to watch online video content.

My list above is far from exhaustive, are there any companies or applications that strike you as really having some personality of their own? Does it improve your experience, or detract from it? Or, are you just waiting for the day when most of our overt interactions with technology are intermediated through Turing-capable virtual people, complete with their own, robust personalities?

The researchers chose to point the hidden attack at their own server, of course — but were surprised that more than 1,000 Facebook users installed the application, even though they only mentioned it to friends.

That led to a peak of 300 requests per hour and on its peak day, the traffic went above 6 Mbits per second.

It’s a pretty clever attack. But 6Mbits isn’t really that much, it’s roughly equivalent to the maximum speed of a typical DSL connection (or double the speed of a typical DSL connection if your building, like mine, has old copper wiring). Given enough users and sufficiently large taget files, this attack could be pretty potent.

Distributed attacks like these are not new, but using a social networking platform (in this way), instead of unguarded IIS installs, is new. Arguably this is the next step from myspace/msn virus spam, where an account is breached and it messages all of its contacts, requesting that they “install a picture” — which is actually the attack software. But this is the first time that I’ve seen an attack like this that actually delivers value to the nodes (in this case, the application users).

Nefarious hackers have already had users willingly (albeit unknowingly) participate in illegal online activities. In what was another very clever move, spammers were able to get users to solve CAPTCHAs in exchange for free porn (the link is clean). They used these results to sign up for online email accounts, to likely be used to sell pharmacueticals back to those same users.

All of this seems to bring about, once again, the conclusion that technology is not inherently good or evil, but a) people will use it to do bad things (or expose them, like the facebook researchers), and b) users need to be protected, most often from themselves and their unsafe computing habits.

I think that the problem with b) is that computer security education, while quickly growing in importance, simply isn’t sexy. So instead of safe habits, annoying security applications are phoned-in. As computing power moves from the desktop to the cloud, people are going to have to port (or learn) their safe computing habits to a new venue, otherwise it’s going to really be the wild west, where no server or account is safe from harm. Facebook is just the latest example.

Also, and this isn’t exactly Wikinomics related, but the BBC has a great piece on the history of the construction of the Large Hadron Collider. Check it out.

You need to be a premium member to get access to the demographic cross-tabs, but I would assume that age is the primary dividing line here: I can’t imagine too many Net Geners who grew up “bathed in bits” would support the balance initiative, but I could just as easily understand how people who don’t use the Internet (or don’t use it too often), which is a much older demographic, could be drawn into supporting it.

Such people would come from a broadcast media mindset, where certain individuals could consolidate control of dominant media assets, and thus control the political messaging that the vast majority of people are exposed to (think: the one newspaper town). The internet, of course, is an entirely different animal – one where it’s a lot harder (an understatement to say the least) to get a stranglehold on the political messages being sent out. More to the point, could you imagine how much less interesting so many websites (and particularly blogs, assuming they would be included) would be if they were forced to balance their opinions… when the whole point of the site/blog is to offer their unique opinion on a given subject?

So yes – the very notion of balance on individual sites is the worst idea I’ve heard this week, even though I still think there’s a business opportunity for someone to create a site that’s far better than what we have to day in making that balance easily accessible to those that are interested. But to take a positive spin on the survey findings, 71% of people said it’s already possible for “just about any political view to be heard in the media.” It’s easy to forget how little time has passed since the majority of people would not have agreed with that…

In one case, a defendant was sentenced to two years in prison rather than probation because between her DUI arrest and conviction, pictures were posted to her Myspace page showing her to be holding a glass of wine and joking about drinking. Distasteful, but not illegal. According to the prosecutor this photo evidence showed a sufficient lack of remorse on the part of the defendant and therefore warranted a harsher sentence.

This article very neatly describes what could become a very slippery legal slope. I bet that most of us have at some time or another heard about a case in which we were sure that the accused was guilty and had the thought that prosecutors should do whatever it takes to achieve a conviction. But there is something about prosecutors using photos accessed from social networking sites to secure a conviction that seems a little too ‘Big Brother-esque’ to make me comfortable with it.

I do not condone the behavior of the individuals mentioned in this article or others like them. But, I find it to be pretty scary to think that one’s innocent actions — irrespective of any bad taste — could be manipulated or misinterpreted so that they become sinister, even damning. It is important to remember that although a picture may be worth a thousand words those words often only make sense within a certain context.

The idea that a prosecutor may be able to paint the context of these pictures so clearly when they technically have nothing to do with the crime committed is frightening. In a world of transparency, where someone’s indescretions can be easily broadcast for all to see, is context lost? If it is, what right do we have to pass judgment on them?

Self-proclaimed to have indexed three times more pages than Google and 10 times more pages than Microsoft, Cuil is the brainchild of Tom Costello, Anna Patterson and Russell Power, formerly of IBM and Google.  With some pretty direct attacks on other unnamed search engines that “rely on superficial popularity metrics,” Cuil’s philosophy is “to solve the two great problems of search: how to index the whole Internet—not just part of it—and how to analyze and sort out its pages so you get relevant results.”

While I was unable to complete many searches effectively today due to overwhelming traffic to the site, Cuil appears to have great potential and I am intrigued by the service’s promise to “guide [me] towards answers to the questions [I'm] not even sure how to ask.”

Another advertised feature that is sure to attract attention is cuil’s privacy policy that can be summed up in short by their tagline “your search history is your business, not ours.” (It should be interesting to see how long this lasts.)

What do you think?  Are the other player(s) in for some trouble? 

Certain pundits think not, and a few have been quick to point out such potential shortcomings as having a name that noone knows how to pronounce as being an important marketing flaw.  (Nomenclature troubles didn’t seem to hurt Google much.)  Others, including $30+ milllion in VC funding seem to think Cuil is on to something hot.

Personally, I find that the quality of the debate itself runs somewhat counter to the thesis that Google, Digg, blogs, and other social media tools are making us stupider (or stoopider, if you prefer) – it’s pretty hard to read everything that I’ve linked to above and not come out feeling a little smarter for the time invested. However, such articles are by no means representative of what most people typically spend time reading online, so I certainly see value in the debate continuing to evolve – which is where this recent NY TImes piece comes in.

Here’s a selection of my favorite quotes (and I really like the first couple as thought starters in terms of how brains are being wired differently, in a way that could be construed as both good and bad):

Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.

Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”

Nadia said she preferred reading stories online because “you could add your own character and twist it the way you want it to be. So like in the book somebody could die,” she continued, “but you could make it so that person doesn’t die or make it so like somebody else dies who you don’t like.” Nadia also writes her own stories. She posted “Dieing Isn’t Always Bad,” about a girl who comes back to life as half cat, half human, on both fanfiction.net and quizilla.com.

Elizabeth Birr Moje, a professor at the University of Michigan who led the study, said novel reading was similar to what schools demand already. But on the Internet, she said, students are developing new reading skills that are neither taught nor evaluated in school.

Though he also likes to read books (earlier this year he finished, and loved, “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand), Zachary craves interaction with fellow readers on the Internet. “The Web is more about a conversation,” he said. “Books are more one-way.” The kinds of skills Zachary has developed — locating information quickly and accurately, corroborating findings on multiple sites — may seem obvious to heavy Web users. But the skills can be cognitively demanding.

Web readers are persistently weak at judging whether information is trustworthy. In one study, Donald J. Leu, who researches literacy and technology at the University of Connecticut, asked 48 students to look at a spoof Web site (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/) about a mythical species known as the “Pacific Northwest tree octopus.” Nearly 90 percent of them missed the joke and deemed the site a reliable source.

Today, Google downloads the web continuously, collecting updated page information and re-processing the entire web-link graph several times per day. This graph of one trillion URLs is similar to a map made up of one trillion intersections. So multiple times every day, we do the computational equivalent of fully exploring every intersection of every road in the United States. Except it’d be a map about 50,000 times as big as the U.S., with 50,000 times as many roads and intersections.

I’m starting to think that this internets thing just might catch on.