Innovation Predictions 2008

Get ready for … anything. As companies, governments—indeed, entire countries—confront an array of dilemmas, the only constant will be change

by Bruce Nussbaum, BusinessWeek

Innovation & Design

Building the next-generation enterprise—and maybe even the next-generation nation—will preoccupy most of us in 2008. The demand for innovation is soaring in the business community and is just beginning to gain traction in the political sphere. Most of the leading Presidential candidates have thoughtful positions on innovation (BusinessWeek.com, 11/15/07). And nearly all CEOs and top managers who have learned the language of innovation are now seeking the means to make it happen. It took the Quality Movement a generation to change business culture. The Innovation Movement is still in its infancy, but it's growing fast.

You can see that in the vast changes taking place within the field. Companies are demanding new tools and methods to execute that change within their existing organizations, as well as for the kind of design thinking that transforms cultures. To take advantage of the opportunities, chief innovation officers in big corporations such as Procter & Gamble (PG) and Harley Davidson (HOG) are leaving to join consultancies or set up shop for themselves. Consolidation is quickening apace as small innovation consultancies try to combine big-picture thought leadership with specific, on-demand Web applications that manage networks, talent, customers, suppliers, and employees around the world. In 2007, consultancy Monitor bought into innovation strategy specialists Doblin, led by Larry Keeley, while another large consultancy, BSG Alliance acquired research firm New Paradigm, led by Wikinomics co-author Dan Tapscott.

What's up for 2008? Keep an eye on the business schools. Companies are demanding that their managers be more creative and less obsessed with cost and efficiency. The last revolution within executive education was the introduction of Management Science in the 1950s. Will we see the spread of IM—Innovation Management—in "exec ed"?

Privacy, Mobility, and the Next Big Idea

And expect the whole realm of social networking to change in 2008. Just when you "got it" and thought it was all about open, personal, and casual online relationships, social media will morph into another ecosystem—one with lots of gates. Who your friends are is becoming far more important than how many friends you have. We can probably thank our advertising friends for this. The drive to monetize Facebook and MySpace (NWS) by using members' personal information is alienating many people, driving them to more private networks. Stay tuned, and watch Europe and Brazil for future trends. Social networks are beginning to feel a lot like hot nightclubs—with velvet rope barriers.

As for hot products in 2008, prepare for yet more surprises. The triumph of opening up the cell phone will create an array of new applications we can only dream of right now. GPS may seem old hat by next summer. The mobile Facebook is bound to be fascinating. And the e-book may be just an iteration away from taking off. Want to reduce your personal carbon footprint easily? Read books, magazines, and newspapers on an e-book.

And the Big Idea for 2008? Stop competing against your competitors. Your traditional rivals aren't your biggest worry. Disruptive innovation is hitting corporations from outside their business. Verizon (VZ) was forced to open its cell-phone service because Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) smacked it hard. Verizon's new business model will probably generate 10 times the demand for service. You just never know. That's life, in beta.

For more on 2008 innovation predictions, see BusinessWeek's slide show.

Nussbaum is an assistant managing editor in charge of BusinessWeek's innovation and design coverage. In 2005, he was named one of the 40 most powerful people in design by I.D. Magazine .

IBM Survey: SOA Discussion Moves From IT Staff Roundtables to Executive Agenda

Yahoo Finance, Tuesday July 10, 11:25 am ET

ARMONK, NY--(MARKET WIRE)--Jul 10, 2007 -- IBM Today announced the results of a survey of clients that concludes the strategic decisions to adopt a service oriented architecture (SOA) are shifting away from the realm of IT staffers to business executives. SOA is a business strategy that helps a company reuse existing technology to more closely align it with business goals, driving efficiencies, cost savings, productivity, and enabling the creation of more modular and global business designs.

The survey was conducted for IBM by the Link Group and consisted of a sampling of clients at the IBM Impact 2007 event, which drew more than 4,200 technical and business leaders. The survey validates a fundamental commitment to SOA as the future of process and application design -- with both significant increases in budgets and the number of SOA projects aimed at new business challenges. At the same time, the survey also found that there is an increasing need for training staff so they possess the unique combination of both business and IT skills required for a business to realize the potential of SOA.

The survey also revealed that 67 percent of the respondents said the key decision makers responsible for moving to an SOA strategy are business leaders including C-level executives and business managers. Additionally, 65 percent of clients said that business leaders are also primarily responsible for selecting an IT partner to help achieve business goals in an SOA.

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Bill Gates: The next great success will come from Asia

Xinhua

"The next great success will come from Asia", said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said here Saturday.

Sixty percent of the people in the United States said the next success would come from Asia, Gates said, citing a survey done in the United States on "where will the next big success and where the next Bill Gates come from".

That's true as it's well recognized that the investment and changes here are leading to very innovative work, said Gates at the annual session of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), which opened Saturday in the southern China town of Boao.

According to him, Microsoft established its first research center in Asia about 10 years ago and currently is spending 60 percent of its research and development budget in Asia.

The quality of job by Microsoft's development centers in Asia is among the best in the world, he added.

Gates said he was surprised that Thomas Friedman's book, The World Is Flat, is not only popular in the United States but also in countries throughout Asia, and it's a biggest seller in China.

According to him, Friedman has done a good job in explaining how two amazing things come together. One is the economic development in Asia, particularly the investment in education; and the other is the advances in technology, particularly the rivalry on the Internet.

He said the opportunity that a person has used to be largely determined by the country they were living in, but now the opportunity is much more determined by the level of education that they received.

"And so not only is Asia benefiting from the uses of new technology, Asia will increasingly be the source of advances in technology," said Gates.

Gates arrived in Beijing Thursday for his 10th visit to China, during which he met with Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi and visited the prestigious Beijing University and Qinghua University in Beijing.

Established in 2001, the Boao Forum for Asia has become the premier platform for discussions about economic development in the world's largest continent.

This year's BFA annual conference attracted more than 1,400 most influential politicians, business leaders and intellectuals from Asia and around the globe.

Source: Xinhua

'Innovation, investment key to Asia's dynamism'

Asian economies need to embrace innovation and invest more in technology so that they will continue to lead the world with their economic miracle, say leaders attending the Boao Forum for Asia conference.

The Jakarta Post

Riyadi Suparno, Boao, Hainan, China

"Rapid and peaceful economic development in Asia is a miracle," Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, told the Boao forum, "but it needs more investment in education and technology" to keep the miracle going.

Investment in education, he said, was necessary to improve the welfare of common people as the benefits of educational attainment to wealth creation are beyond doubt, and investment in technology should support that.

Investment in technology, said Gates, should focus on industries related to three big areas that have revolutionized the world: personal computing, the Internet and mobile telephony.

"A PC connected to the Internet is the greatest achievement mankind has ever created," he said, adding that mobile technology has made them even more powerful.

Therefore, he said, Asian economies, especially the big players like China and India, should invest more in research and development, especially in these three areas, to keep the miracle going, Gates said.

Since 2000, Asia's economy has grown by over 6 percent per annum, contributing to 20 percent of world economic growth. Today, Asia's economy, trade and foreign exchange reserves respectively take up a quarter, one-third and three-quarters of the world's total.

Wu Boangguo, the third-most important person in China after the president and prime minister, said that to maintain Asia as the most dynamic region in the world, there should be enhanced cooperation in science and technology.

"The growth of wealth and the increase of people's well-being increasingly hinge on the accumulation of knowledge and innovation," said Wu, currently chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

"In the face of a global trend in scientific and technological development and fierce competition, only by giving top priority to scientific and technological innovation can we Asian countries seize the opportunity and take the lead in development," he added.

On China, Wu explained that his government now gives priority to independent innovation to turn China into an "innovation-based country" by 2020, when scientific and technological advances should contribute to over 60 percent of economic growth, imported technologies should be brought down to below 30 percent and research and development expenditures should increase to over 2.5 percent of GDP.

"It is a national strategy we pursue in all endeavors of modernization," he said.

Speaking at the same forum, Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that despite technological advancement achieved in many countries in Asia, Asia continues to be seen as a low-cost production house for Western brands and, therefore, it needs to move up the "value-chain" by innovating in products and services.

"Asian companies need to continue acquiring companies in the West and creating their own brands, as brand creation boosts both value and return," Aziz said.

Japan looks to future mobile telecoms utopia

Andi Haswidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Apart from providing more convenience and efficiency in communication, mobile telecommunications will also play a significant role in the future of education and healthcare, a Japanese telecoms expert says.

Hitoshi Yoshino, a senior executive of NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile telecoms operator, said Thursday during a Japanese government-sponsored seminar in Jakarta that the advancement of mobile technology had begun to change the way the people supplied medical services and education.

In the future, he said, mobile telecommunication technology would enhance human to human, human to machine and machine to machine communications.

"As we can see from the video, an advanced application, among other things, would allow a veterinarian to examine a sick horse remotely from his car through holographic images and virtual telephony," Hitoshi said during a video presentation.

Such a scenario, Hitoshi said, would require a broadband data transfer capability in the range of 500 megabytes to 3 gigabytes per second. The most widely used broadband wireless data transfer system at the present time has a capability of 384 kilobytes per second.

The video show highlighted some of the possibilities offered by the fourth-generation mobile technology (4G) known as International Mobile Technology (IMT)-Advanced, which represents the next stage of development of NTT DoCoMo's current third-generation (3G) mobile technology, known as Freedom Of Multimedia Access (FOMA), or IMT-2000. Other potentials included platforms for mobile remote learning systems, urban area monitoring with a personal uplink system, mobile botanical laboratories, one-stop travel boarding system, and integration of information technology with transportation access.

The video also highlighted how a disabled teacher could converse and interact closely with students during a pottery class using a virtual telephony system with images projected vividly on what appeared to be an ordinary "big window" glasses.

Japan raced ahead of other developed countries when launching it launched the world's first 3G technology with the rollout of NTT DoCoMo's FOMA in 2001.

NTT DoCoMo is a subsidiary of Japan's incumbent telephone operator NTT, while the name DoCoMo is officially an abbreviation of the phrase Do Communications Over the Mobile Network. It also means "everywhere" in Japanese.

Since FOMA was the first 3G technology to penetrate the market, it uses a similar, but nevertheless different, kind of 3G technology to the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), which was first adopted by Europe and later became the most widely used in the world.

Hitoshi said that to ensure the further development of FOMA, global harmonization of frequency spectrum bands had to occur so as to ensure economies of scale and permit global roaming.

"Globally harmonized bands are needed for both coverage bands and capacity bands," he stressed.

Brain scan 'can read your mind'

BBC News

The researchers used scans of the brain to predict decisions

Brain scans have been developed which it is claimed can predict what a person is about to do.

German, British and Japanese scientists were able to "read minds" using sophisticated functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) and computer programs.

Current Biology reported people were asked to think about adding or subtracting - scientists were able to read intentions in 70% of cases.

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Working in the Virtual World

Strategies for keeping your staff from slipping into technology and out of communication.

Feb 08, 2007

By Gerry Davis, Heidrick & Struggles, CIO.com

Executives are grappling with new ways of managing their staff as the world grows flatter and leadership teams are decentralized and virtualized. The old “face-oriented” offices have given way to virtual communities of outsource partners, offshore teams and globally distributed workforces.

On any given day, 42 percent of IBM’s workforce of 330,000 workers does not report to the location where they are based. The company’s human resources head Randy Macdonald says the past 10 years will be characterized as the fall of the traditional business empire and the rise or emergence of global collaborative and virtual empires.

This new paradigm is enabled by the proliferation of communications technologies, broadband and changing business models. In a faster-paced, more competitive world, executives must be more flexible and agile, and must acquire new communication and management skills. Paradoxically, a virtual world calls for greater relationship-building efforts than in traditional teams or organizations.

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IBM set to expand presence in mainland China

Beijing (ANTARA News/Asia Pulse) - IT giant IBM plans to open more solution centers and increase its headcount on the mainland in the next few years, as part of its global transition from hardware manufacturer to information technology service provider.

"We will continue to scale up the number and size of solution centers on the mainland," said Dominic Tong, the general manager of IBM's China business. IBM currently has five centers and 3,000 staff on the mainland. Tong said IBM was also helping its mainland partners to go global.

"Many mainland enterprises plan to extend their businesses overseas, and we can use our networks to assist them in setting up branches in overseas markets such as Hong Kong," he said.

Internet to revolutionize TV in 5 years: Gates

Saturday January 27, 5:02 pm ET

By Ben Hirschler

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The Internet is set to revolutionize television within five years, due to an explosion of online video content and the merging of PCs and TV sets, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said on Saturday.

"I'm stunned how people aren't seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we've had," he told business leaders and politicians at the World Economic Forum.

The rise of high-speed Internet and the popularity of video sites like Google Inc.'s YouTube has already led to a worldwide decline in the number hours spent by young people in front of a TV set.

In the years ahead, more and more viewers will hanker after the flexibility offered by online video and abandon conventional broadcast television, with its fixed program slots and advertisements that interrupt shows, Gates said.

"Certain things like elections or the Olympics really point out how TV is terrible. You have to wait for the guy to talk about the thing you care about or you miss the event and want to go back and see it," he said.

"Internet presentation of these things is vastly superior."

At the moment, watching video clips on a computer is a separate experience from watching sitcoms or documentaries on television.

But convergence is coming, posing new challenges for TV companies and advertisers.

"Because TV is moving into being delivered over the Internet -- and some of the big phone companies are building up the infrastructure for that -- you're going to have that experience all together," Gates said.

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley said the impact on advertising would be profound, with the future promising far more targeted ads tailored to each viewer's profile.

"In the coming months we're going to do experiments to see how people interact with these ads to build an effective model that works for advertisers and works for users," he said.

Advertisers are already racing to adapt their strategies to the growing power of the Web, and more and more promotional cash is tipped to migrate from television to Web sites in future.

The Anderson Forecast: 2007 Predictions From One of the Best

By Jim Louderback, PC Magazine

Analyst and futurist Mark Anderson, author of the influential Strategic News Service newsletter and blog has made a career out of making correct predictions. He claims a 93.5 percent success ratio over the years he's been doing annual predictions.

By and large, I think they've held up pretty well. So when Anderson invited me to his annual prediction dinner, I accepted immediately – even though it meant missing our company holiday party, held concurrently in New York City.

Do those numbers stand up? Decide for yourself. Read Anderson's 2006 predictions.

Anderson started by laying out some chilling world trends that keep him up at night. "I think about oil, cheap labor and money", he said, continuing to explain that "these are things which we have no control over."

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