Super-fast Internet is the new ‘Wealth of Nations’ – enabling innovation competitive advantage & improving destination desirability; failure is not an option.

What do code and classics have in common? An interesting insight from Jon Dahl.

SLIDES — Web 2.0 & social media are the part of new media of the digital age.
This includes blogs, wikis like Wikipedia, RSS feeds and sites like youtube or stumbleupon.
Business, Not Tech.
These slides set out the 10 key technologies. with a business focus, in business language. not tech-speak. So many explanations out there are technical.
We created these slides for clients, which along with a verbal presentation, explain what the technologies are, and why business should care.
2thinknow also have a proprietary web 2.0 strategy matrix that assists business to make rational …

Web 2.0 enables all new types of communication, for many reasons, the medium is indeed the message…

COMMENT, USA — There’s a lot of fear and loathing about Microsoft buying Yahoo.

The initial discussion seems to focus on Yahoo as a search offering for Microsoft, to strengthen Microsoft against Google. That won’t deliver value.
Fact is Yahoo has a strong email brand, but few people use yahoo for search. Google is widely used, and mostly returns the best results.

Yahoo & Microsoft merger/takeover is not really a threat to competition as a younger, more powerful competitor is likely to emerge as the innovator in the search sector.
A young unknown start-up …

COMMENT, Global – When I say global I mean English-speaking countries, like USA, UK & Australia. Here there is a rise of info-tainment disguised as journalism.
As an example: In Australia we have a program called Sunrise. It’s morning current affairs, sort of – really more about social issues and controversy.
The 2 presenters are:
Koch: A balding ex-Finance guy, who started as a leading Finance guru.
Mel: And a parochial Canberra reporter who somehow can read an auto-prompter.
And a team of mostly nice presenters who get shuffled around like a deck of cards, …

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, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA — Thanks to all of you who attended our joint Web 2.0 seminar in our Melbourne offices.
It’s an emerging topic in Australia (Australia is about at early-adopter stage (2%), whereas the USA is in adolescence on Web 2.0 adoption.)
We had quite a few big Melbourne companies, government, and some fellows from the press…
Sydney Seminar Tuesday, November 20th.
It was informative, interesting, and please remember when it comes to Web 2.0 you are not alone.
Our partner firm simple, can help; wherever you are on the growth curve.
Take care,
…

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, Global: Web Media –
The media has the wrong idea on what YOU and I want to read and watch.
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.
News flash for the Media.
People are not obligated to read /watch your media.
Relevance will determine if they do.

COMMENT, Global: 2thinknow ® have identified Web 2.0 as one of the big trends sweeping the business world in a short to medium term.
If you feel Web 2.0 is a buzzword. it is. But then again unlike most, this one is useful.
What is Web 2.0?
In short Web 2.0 is the new new printing press, wireless and TV Tube.

ANALYSIS, Global – We have a lot of goods. Cars, books, stereos, DVDs, printers, computers, Walkmans, toys, clothes, kitchenware, etc.
Even jeans (I don’t know about you, but I’ll never fit into them again!)

When we are finished with goods we throw them out. Doesn’t have to be that way…

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, Global — We’ve have been in a post-modernist age for some time now.
But someone forgot to tell those 1950s-loving industrialist neo-cons.
The innovation zeitgeist is with the Creative Age.
Let’s look at where that innovation is for a moment.

COMMENT, Global — The modern world seems complex.
That’s because we’re trying to understand it with modernist 1950s metaphors from the age of the soon-to-be-gone Oil Economy.
The Neo-Cons were really the last hurrah, and just look how well Iraq is working out for them.
That’s despite all the freedoms they managed to crush in Western countries by invoking a straw man of terrorism and turning a blind eye to some desert-dwelling nutcases.
But the fact is they don’t get it. The modern world. The internet. Or trends.

ANALYSIS, Global — Our town, our world, is drowning under a flood of cheap sub-standard products. Products that we can and did once live without.
This is because our modernist global economic system in English-speaking countries largely runs on the manufacture and mass consumption of cheap low-priced goods made from oil-based plastics.
Think about that for a second. What really happens?
The following chain of events was loosely based on media reports of the China pet food story, Fisher Price scandal, and recent other events.
Here is one average scenario:
A company in your city …

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 …

ANALYSIS, Sydney –The tendency to think cities are homogenous across a country is an untruth.
Melbourne CBD is vastly different to Sydney CBD. (Yes I’m in Sydney once again. City yesterday and Parramatta today.)
Sydney CBD is vastly different to Parramatta.
The culture in the northern & Eastern Suburbs of Sydney are different. Both are affluent eras generally, but the culture is different.
This goes further than cities. Any form of grouping, cities, generational, academic, social, demographic is by nature a generalization.
Grouping theories
To generalise is human nature.
And many times in writing or describing …