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Connections and Creativity: Where are the New Frontiers?
by Madanmohan Rao, PICNIC 2008 Ambassador and Editor of “The Knowledge Management Chronicles”
In the first couple of days, we looked at a range of frameworks and case studies of how new media are helping creative communities, and the last day of PICNIC had a dazzling array of discussions and debates on future trends and fads in this field.
Here is my pick of the top ten trends to watch for in the coming years -- email me at madan@techsparks.com with your thoughts and responses!
1. The Rise of “Professional” Social Networking
Popular models of Web 2.0-based social networking on consumer or citizen sites will extend to professional communities within and outside organisations as well. Witness the rise of OpenAd, SellABand and Blurb, which are more than just communities of interest in advertising, music or publishing – but well-developed networks of professional services.
2. Citizen media brings political power to the people
From the US to the far reaches of Africa (as the one-day track “Surprising Africa” so powerfully revealed), citizens are claiming control over the narrative affecting their lives. This is being amplified by traditional media and diaspora populations, and giving power to the people – though much more struggle will be needed to fully transform dictatorial regimes or unilateralist powers.
3. Mobile communication is opening up unprecedented value chains
From the use of airtime as currency in developing countries to the growing demand for “snack media” in mature economies, mobile communication is both extending the shelf-life of existing content to creating entirely new forms of economic transaction for stakeholder communities.
4. “Everything now for me”
The combination of universal search, immediate access, and personalised communities is giving rise to a culture where people expect to be able to search the entire “info-cloud” and immediately connect to the information, tools and people they want, customised to their community profile and delivered to their device of choice. This is way beyond instant gratification.
5. Music will be delivered via a digital flat-rate model
Music, one of the oldest forms of human entertainment, is about to see its industrial-era packaging, distribution and value-adding mechanisms completely morphed. Music futurist Gerd Leonhard predicts that music will eventually be offered via a digital flat rate model. Musicians will have to learn how to have real conversations with empowered connected fans, and understand that the rules of marketing and IPR have changed forever in the new social networks.
6. Innovations from emerging economies
The “developing nations” of the world will no longer be just passive destinations for selling Western products, but become sources of innovation in their own right, plugged into global models of innovation and distribution. The new challenge will be creatively harnessing “the global brain,” and the challenge of bringing “the next three billion people” into markets like the digital domain will transform the first two billion as well.
7. Green impacts come to the fore
Faster perhaps than we realise, the human race is adversely affecting our environment – but new models of connecting environmentally conscious citizens and socially networked entrepreneurs will accelerate the search and development of solutions, well evinced by organisations such as TENQ’s JoinThePipe.org initiative. Social networking’s impact will continue to extend not just for fun or profit – but also to the fate of the human race, our planet, and maybe beyond.
8. Human behaviour morphs with new media
Several human behaviours have been amplified by new media and the connected ecosystem: witness the rise of multitasking, Internet habits/addiction, attention disorders, decreased rest time, increasing opportunities for playful lying online and on mobiles, and the status of tools like laptops as “extensions of the personal brain” or even as personal toys.
9. The importance of cross-media, cross-modal interactions
New waves of media overlay and redefine previous existing media, thus creating new forms of feedback and feedforward loops, eg. the amplifying power of traditional media on blogs. The combination of online and offline interactions enriches both forms, and creates new layers of relationships and business models.
10. The biggest innovation will be in the process of innovation itself
A new wave of startups is emerging, which would have been inconceivable even just a few years ago, thanks to their leveraging of scalable on-demand digital infostructure. Utilities ranging from free open source applications to fee-based features like Amazon Web services and a range of free social networking sites have helped spawn an amazing range of startups: Vimeo, JamGlue, PandaStream, SmugMug and DigitalChalk. Many startups are just a group of teenagers with laptops, who plug into the “cloud” for information, tools, hosting infrastructure and applications to serve their customers. And innovation communities like MobileMonday (www.mobilemonday.net) can spawn local innovations in dozens of cities around the world – and leverage new media to cross-pollinate such innovation across the world and to bring new startups together with existing large players.
Oh, before I forget, there is one more trend I forgot to mention: events like PICNIC will continue to be the benchmark for facilitating new thinking on such global connected creativity. See you all next year at PICNIC 2009 in Amsterdam and New York!
