What The Internet Means

This is the best slideshow I've ever seen. It is about the internet, and what it means. I couldn't possibly sum it up. Just start going through it and you'll probably be hooked.

It's amazing to think how lucky we are to live in such an exciting time.

Digital Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet)

View more documents from David Gillespie.

Anonymity Is The New Privacy

We don't just live in an information economy - we live in an information society. More and more everyday, I am convinced that the way we gather and act upon data will determine our collective prosperity. The more we know, the sooner we know it, the better the data is - the better decisions we can make.

Here is a prime example of what I'm talking about:




Having all this data at our disposal is very empowering. I think the old adage, "knowledge is power" is absolutely true. However, we also have to remember that "with great power comes great responsibility. Knowledge and power is like any weapon - it can be used for good or for ill. No one wants to live in an Orwellian society, but it appears we are moving in that direction.

For example, consider this recent incident in the UK. The police busted a party because it was tagged as an all-nighter on facebook, and for whatever reason they felt like they should stop it. The funny part is that they intervened via helicopter at 4:00 pm - before the "crime" ever occurred. Sound familiar?

That was just an aside that I found funny, but it does have serious implications. The amount of data stored on each of our personal lives is tremendous, and it will only increase. However, there is a tendency for activists to psychologically separate the positive power of data from the negative power of data. You can't have your cake and eat it too, and you can't have the benefits of power without the risks.

I think this is a broader pattern of our society, possibly of human nature. Skip to 3:22 on this video and you'll see an interesting proof of this point.



But, returning to the point on information and privacy, what are we going to do? We need information in order to create shared prosperity. We can't just regress to the stone age. I think the solution is to think hard about anonymity. With anonymity you share your data but it doesn't identify you as an individual. In contrast, I think privacy means your data isn't shared at all. Of course, there will always be a way to figure out who you are and reveal your anonymity. I think this is where privacy policies come in. We will be thinking more and more about what goes into those legal documents, and I think that segment of the lawyer industry is going to grow a lot over the next decade, when more and more of these issues surface due to advancing technology.

I think the lighthearted reference I made earlier to the movie Minority Report is actually pretty instructive here. We need to think about the moral implications of stopping crimes before they happen, because technology is just going to move further in that direction. I think the best thing we can do is to realize that you can never get something for nothing, and to be cognizant of the risks.

The Future of Business is Small

In the past, companies had to be big because they had to in order to stay organized. Communications and transportation technologies were slow and expensive, so they needed a hierarchical chain of command to maximize efficiency. You can't have an open discussion about an important business decision very well via snail mail.

Another reason bigger used to be better is that there were fewer competitors and they were mostly producing physical objects of some sort. If you sold 100 widgets a day, you could beat out the guy selling 10 widgets a day on sheer scale, because there wasn't much possibility for differentiation of the products. They just had to work.

But now, product differentiation and company flexibility matter a lot more.

The number of businesses has increased vastly, therefore, the number of choices have increased with it. All those choices have made a crowded marketplace, and it seems to me that people are less and less satisfied with a product just being a good deal. They want the product to stand out, to have good design, to meet some special niche need, and on top of that, they also want it to be cheap and they want it to work. When a product stands out it gives people a reason to not have to sort through every last boring alternative to see which one is marginally better.

Think of Apple for example. Mac computers cost more on average than their PC counterparts, but people still buy them. Why? They perform the same tasks as a PC but they do it with style. They are fun to use as works of art themselves, not just a means to some end.

I'm sure a lot of people will say, "You're just describing the luxury market, nothing has really changed." This is part true, but I think that we shouldn't underestimate the momentous shift caused by the internet. Before, branding was an expensive thing, you had to pay for advertising which was really expensive. Now, any company can make a snazzy looking product and advertise and brand it themselves online for much cheaper. We're seeing a branding arms race. People want to be a part of a community and companies want communities formed around their products. The internet is enabling this to happen to a greater and greater extent.

So back to my initial thesis, that the future of business is small. The reason I think we'll start to see a trend toward leaner business is that people are starting to reject mass-advertising. Friends are much more trustworthy than some marketer. With the internet, it is becoming easier to rely on real connections with people we trust to make purchasing decisions. I'm describing businesses that are more like movements. They are smaller and more flexible, so they can always outpace their bigger rivals when the markets shift. They'll be able to stay on top of trends. They'll have a more loyal customer base. They can get in touch with suppliers through similar social networks, rather than the traditional good-ole-boy network. These suppliers can come from anywhere in the world.

The global market is getting a lot more competitive, and the products that stand out, and are made by lean companies will win.