COMMENT, Global – One of the trends I have noticed amplified whilst updating my book the Global Innovation Review 2007, is a return to the figurative in art and culture.
Why is this important? It shows direction in art. Away from post-modernist ‘I am a painter so why do I bother to paint?‘ thinking that typified the 90s. The 90s were however that kind of decade perhaps…!
Even moreso it shows a return to seeking meaning. It’s tiring looking at noir films, drinking black coffee and talk about meaninglessness.
Remember the artist …

COMMENT, Global – A couple of months ago I was in San Francisco at a business event. The topic was citizen journalism. The women next to me was writing paper notes.
However, every single person, almost in that room was writing on a laptop.
The wireless internet crashed in the first 15 minutes. A few people were asked to turn off ‘Bit-torrent’ a heavy duty file downloader/sharer. Napster-ish.
We’ll contrast that later with an event in Australia last week.

ANALYSIS, Melbourne, Australia — We have to look at technology as something to utilize for a practical outcome.
Australia needs new ICT policies.
Why we don’t have an ICT Export industry!
According to the AIIA, domestic production of ICT is worth between 4 and 5% of GDP.
ICT exports were once around $7.8 billion per annum, in 2000, according to AIIA.
Now, under Howard, these have declined to $5.4 Billion according to Austrade.
There’s no reason we cannot more than double ICT exports in 5-10 years through government policy.
Canada is a country closes to Australia in …

ANALYSIS-IN-BRIEF, Global –Tim Berners-Lee is the father of the internet as a useful tool, in the form of the Web. He was there at the web’s birth, as the picture of the CERN web server following shows.

If you want to understand the future of the internet, as a communication medium then read Berners-Lee’s book, “Weaving the Web”.

ANALYSIS, Global – The answer is to ‘Stand on the Shoulders of Giants’.
This is the first part of a regular series on how to speak the language of ideas in coming weeks. How to be an Ideas Person.
Ideas and an intellectual education are important no matter how old we are. Both help us make better decisions in terms of positive change in our societies.
How do we personally understand what is positive change and what is not?
We talk incessantly about success, about wanting positive change.
We talk about love, relationships, children, families, …

COMMENT, Melbourne, Australia — Most of you are aware that I am constantly researching global innovation for 2thinknow.
This can be as broad as current global themes of: environmental or climate change issues, food supply, public transport, air travel, activism, business, new technology, Web 2.0, library 2.0, social networks, Social ideas, creative ideas, art & cultural ideas.
In short, ideas & inspiration for the intellectually curious with a global mindset.
What you may not be aware is I bookmark all sorts of industry and general innovation resources in a place where they …

COMMENT, Melbourne, Australia — Social networks are the next big thing, depending on where you are located in the physical world, they can be at various stages of adoption.
I asked this to a few people at WordCamp 2007 in San Francisco, and in a case of preaching to the converted, many felt blogs were already ‘established’.
But blogs & social networks have not gone mainstream yet in most markets.
(If one applies a model called the Innovation Diffusion curve, that is.)
PS. If you are reading this and twittering, you are probably not …

COMMENT, Melbourne, Australia — First of all let me say I am not partisan. I vote right, I vote left.
Personally, I think Giuliani, Gore, Clinton and McCain would all make good presidents at different times. Professionally I think Gore, Giuliani and Clinton may all lead to good outcomes for innovation.
The Left/Right divide is increasingly irrelevant, in any case. In a prior analysis from 2thinknowTM I made the case that the real contest is between Engaged and Not Engaged. See: Election innovation: why Left & Right don’t matter.
How Bush happened:
The people …

NEWS AND ANALYSIS, San Francisco, USA – Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of leading blogging platform WordPress, spoke at WordCamp 2007 today, Sunday July 22, 2007.
For the Agenda of the Matt Mullenweg’s presentation: http://2007.wordcamp.org/schedule/state-of-the-word/
NOTICE AND LICENSE: This story is copyright © 2007 2thinknow.This story is licensed for reprint in full or excerpt under copyright in any print or online media, under the terms that it includes the following byline within the reprint:Source: Christopher Hire, 2thinknowTM : http://www.2thinknow.com/innovation

Innovation: Past and Future of WordPress, according to Matt
Mullenweg …

ANALYSIS, San Francisco – WordCamp 2007 commenced today in San Francisco, at the Swedish American Hall on Market St. This is my second post.Presenter in the second session, was experienced journalist and IT veteran John Dvorak. He was joined by writer from the (sadly rumoured to be defunct) Business 2.0, OM Malik.
Dvorak had two interesting points regarding innovation:
“Bloggers present themselves as bloggers”
“Citizen journalism”
Schedule: http://2007.wordcamp.org/schedule/blogs-vs-journalism/
Both these allude to the innovation zeitgeist as 2thinknowTM define it.
The innovation zeitgesit in blogging is the upcoming professionalism and redesign of the presentation of user …

ANALYSIS, Business — China story is high-risk, high-return business story.
Longer-term it can be big, but as usual, the risks are being understated. Here’s why…
7 reasons why China -story on innovation is risky:
7. China is a large nation of nation-states, much like the EU. There is no single ‘China’ nation, something missed on Westerners.
6. Legal protection may be improving, but observation and enforcement of laws varies province by province
5. Cultural differences under-estimated, as well as no single ‘China language’
4. Lack of cultural freedoms in mainland China. Communism!
3. Grinding poverty in much …

San Francisco is showing innovation leadership beyond technology, it has emerging west coast alternative to US east coast cultural dominance. It also has strong hub ties to Australia and Asia, whereas East Coast has strong hub ties to Europe.
In San Francisco, July 21/22 their will be the Wordpress, Word-Camp. Wordpress will be the next big thing in blogging. All races become two horse races, with a third trailing eventually. Wordpress is well-placed to be horse # 1, 2 or at least 3. I think #1.
Wordpress has innovation leadership in the …

Forget myspace, unless you are a band, start thinking web social communities integrated around common ideas. In business words – fragmented vertical markets of web communities.
Some have said personal/professional divide. More likely we will have multiple profiles in multiple places, StumbleUpon, Xing, linkedIn, Ning, Skype and others being some of those.
Social communities
These are also ending the disconnection found in modern society. Social disconnection is the number one Innovation Driver, found in our Global Innovation research.
So in other words, feeling depressed, empty & alone? Well, in a word you are not …

Librarians are having to deal with the vast amount of content that only occurs in web or electronic form. It’s a massive trend. So a term, Library 2.0 and a support network has arisen. One of their communities online is at: library20.ning.com
Organising electronic data: this is a big issue. I predict veteran website snapshots will be a collectors item one day, much like movie merchandise/posters are now.
Social networking innovations: I found this whilst researching on Marc Andreessen’s new venture Ning.com, basically a site that lets you create your own social …

Sir Tim Berners Lee on the next big innovation beyond Web 2.0. That would be the semantic web. Or basically interchangeable data, data from your contact database, talks to data from a website allowing you to file someone you meet online in your contacts. Or an invoice in your accounting system is machine-readable as an invoice on the web.
In other words no more data conversion. This is what XML is all about, but that is one part of it.
If it wasn’t Berners Lee, i’d say perhaps that’s a B I …

Fresh from my posting about university students, I saw this on www.Digg.com the news ranking site.
The world’s oldest blogger… this lady has a very entertaining (and pictorial) blog.
“My name is Olive Riley. I live in Australia near Sydney. I was born in Broken Hill on Oct. 20th 1899.Broken Hill is a mining town, far away in the centre of Australia. My Friend, Mike, has arranged this blog for me. He is doing the typing and I am telling the stories.” 
read Olive’s Blog | digg story
A very entertaining read, and to …

This little beauty is a Sony UX. it’s basically a full computer a little larger than an iMate. Around the size and weight of your typical paperback novel.
http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/subcategory/notebooks/ux-series they are around USD$1500

When is technology an Innovation?
Readers of my other posts, and Technorati & Fast Company and other online mentions would notice I don’t like Geek for Geek’s sake. Think Geek is not ideal. boys with toys…!
Sony have Innovation Here, or close
This machine (if well designed, I have to check one out soon) is an innovation if it enables a strategic …