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 …

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 …

2THINKNOW COMMENT, Melbourne – “Left turn at Albuquerque.”
Unless you have watched Bugs Bunny you wouldn’t know that. But chances are you have. No matter where you live.
And you might know:
“Quoi de neuf, docteur ?” (Francais)

” Che succede, amico?” (Italiano)
“Hej šefe koji ti je vrag?” (Yugoslav)
“Eh, What’s Up Doc?” (English)
… or in any other language you care to name.
Bugs Bunny is a cartoon that has almost universal understanding across multiple languages all throughout the world.
Animation lends itself to universal communication.
Animation can be dubbed easily into any language. The lips moving don’t …

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 …

COMMENT, the World — Despite the aptly named ‘flat-earth’ society the world is still round.
And the world still goes ’round.
Power is about who you know.
Sometimes who you know can be improved by what you know.
But it is important to know why what you know is important to who you may know.
Money is a method of exchange and one way of keeping score.
But money is a game.
It is only by mutual agreement that those who have acquired money alone are treated as those who have power.
It would be interesting if power …

OPINION, Melbourne, Australia — The ‘do-nothing’ leader of Victoria Steve Bracks has resigned from State Parliament, in a surprise announcement.
The Premier of Australia’s second most populous state, and home to Melbourne and Australia’s leading agricultural regions, today resigned. Good riddance.
Remember it’s not personal, it’s outcomes. We don’t vote our best mates, we vote in the best leader. That’s the theory, more observed in the breach ….
True innovation vs. Do-nothing
Since his surprise win over the true innovator Jeff Kennett, Bracks has single-handedly done nothing for the future of the state.
In the …

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 — I don’t like Left and Right. They are increasingly irrelevant to political elections like the US political race or Australian federal race.
Try engagement and inevitability as the key distinctions to examine elections.
In my time working for various government departments I could tell you some stories, but then the saying goes, I (or someone else) really would have to kill you.
But I can tell you as someone who has seen things first hand that Left & Right alliances, factions and segmentation are more about alliance and …

ANALYSIS, Sydney — Prague proves the point. Culture determines innovation.
Markets do not, not in isolation.
The Czech Republic has one of the least basket-case economies in Eastern Europe and key investment destination of the former Eastern European business investment destinations.
Walking the streets of Prague, we can see all the consulting firms, and major corporations, who have established offices here.
Remote analysis is useful, but research-including-walking-around and observing is often invaluable in pointing out flaws in statistical analysis.
The Balkan problem with Innovation – dogma
Croatia, a very beautiful place, and Slovakia its former sister …

NOTICE — Yes I will be attending WordCamp in San Francisco on 21/22 July. I’m also doing some more research into San Francisco, and having a couple of meetings nearby.
As a believer in Wordpress as an emerging force in social networking trends, we will be writing about what we find, and any new innovation whilst there.
If you are in arts, creative professions, design, cultural, web 2.0, social communities or those sort of areas, and in the Bay Area, do let me know. Further, if you’d like to contribute to …

ANALYSIS — Visited the Art Gallery of South Australia on Saturday. Here’s the ideas and innovation from there.
A very nice venue, with a decidedly Australian colonial focus.
Innovation is like being the sole artist in a colony.
Take yourself back to the 1800s. You’re an English artist of limited fame. You board that long voyage of months to Australia, without more than another artists picture of the place, and a verbal history. Maybe some thin written reports.
It’s an act of faith, stepping on that ship to another distant and strange land. …

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 …